


changing of the guard

by papyrocrat



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papyrocrat/pseuds/papyrocrat





	changing of the guard

She’s stalling, he can tell, but it’s too frakking bizarre to go on rumor, and so he presses. “Is it true?”

He knows before she answers, but he still goes shocked and still when she confirms. For a moment he just leans over her, Apollo over a sacred oracle, but he has nothing left to say.

 _That’s not you anymore_ , he tells himself, _maybe it never was_.

But she’ll wrench something out of him. “What are we going to tell the Quorum?” _Ah, aren’t **we** generous with the conspiratorial language now?_ a Picon voice in his head smarms.

“Tell them they should know by now that Gaius _Baltar_ is lying even when he chances onto fact.”

“Zarek tried.”

“Well, if they can’t be persuaded by the deep and penetrating wisdom of Tom Zarek, I don’t see as I can be much help.“ She lets him see her roll her eyes.

“What are these –“ he flings his mind around for a word that doesn’t taste like insanity “-dreams about?”

“Nothing of consequence to you, Mr. Adama. After all, I’m _on drugs_.” He tries to look like he hasn’t been thinking exactly that. Fails miserably. “You believed my visions three years ago, when it could have cost you everything. “

He smothers the urge to ask for permission to speak freely; forces the truth out instead. “No, I didn’t.”

That does surprise her, he thinks by the way she folds her top lip in when she thinks she’s keeping him at arm’s length, but that’s never been an option between them, not really. They’re either estranged or intertwined, heavy and bracing around each other’s necks.

He fiddles for a moment with some poor dead schmuck’s tie and wishes he hadn’t said anything. “I don’t believe. In the gods. Not then, not now. I came along with you –“ it’s been frakking years and Lee’s just starting to realize he doesn’t know why he did any of it, not really “- because I trusted you.”

“Do you still? Can you still?”

She’s not asking for reassurance, or to scold him. She needs to know. “I think so, ma’am.”

“I’m not sure I trust you either, Lee Adama. But I am, as the entire population knows -” she waves her arm, the one riddled with needle pricks and bandages, toward her pile of medications “-unfortunately not in a position to be picky.”

“Ma’am, I-“

“What’s done is done. I need to find this leak, I want to know how Gaius Baltar is getting into my head.”

He keeps thinking he understands her excruciating life, where strangers feel they deserve an all access pass into her very mind. Then he remembers he was the MC at that particular event, forced her out into the limelight with all this, and now she’s dragging him into it.

Punishment and reward, all at one.  He’s on familiar ground now.

“So you and Tory are going to get together, and you are going to find this leak.”

“Tory?”

Frak.

“Out with it, Lee.”

“Madam President, I’m afraid you might not have to look too far.”

Roslin’s cheeks pull dangerously.

“Ma’am, I’m not accusing your chief of staff of wrongdoing, I believe it was her perfect legal right to be at the gathering – “

“Tory Foster? After all that man put us through?”

“I don’t know the gossip, ma’am. But she looked pretty comfortable there.”

Laura’s hurt, calculating mask slides back into place. “Well, then, Delegate Adama, won’t you escort me to Galactica? I’ve a treatment to attend.”

  



End file.
